5. When you put on your coat, call attention to the fact that it's a "cloth coat," as if that's remarkable, as if anyone would ever expect anyone these days to have a fur. If people look at you funny, double down by calling it "a respectable Republican cloth coat." If somebody gets the jump on you and calls their coat a "cloth coat" first, show that you get it by saying, "As I always say, you'd look good in anything."

10. When you leave a room, turn to anyone who remains in it — or even to an empty room — and proclaim: "I leave you gentlemen now. But as I leave you I want you to know, you won't have [your name] to kick around any more."

11. This is special for lawprofs and other law folk. If anyone mentions Rehnquist, act like they got the name wrong, and faux-correct them with "Renchburg."

12. From Ron in the comments: Play ping pong. Watch Dr. StrangeKissinger. Just for the hell of it say, "Sock it to me?" Just for today call your closest friend "Spiro." Play Checkers.

13. If you find yourself in the kitchen with somebody, strike up a debate and at some point, start needling them about being a Communist.

114 comments:

I wrote to him, post-retirement, after reading Steven Ambrose's epic autobiography (3 volumes). I was impressed with his early (very good) stand on civil rights per Ambriose and wanted to tell him so. Very shortly thereafter, he sent a personal note of thanks for my letter. I was impressed that he had responded.

What about the number of government jobs Nixon lost us by ending the Draft? After Nixon ended the Draft the politically connected lost a most coveted reward of carefully crafted exemptions for the friends of politicians.

I've been thinking a lot lately about a Nixonian concept: the "silent majority". It apparently isn't entirely original to Nixon (or Buchanan), but he made it famous in his day. I'll celebrate his 100th birthday thinking that it's now a "somewhat loud minority".

According to Hunter Thompson in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Nixon was a huge and knowledgable football fan, and the two of them bonded over the subject in a long interview in '68 during the New Hampshire primaries. But then, Thompson was a shameless liar, and that book is full of happy horseshit and probably is dangerous as hell to quote as fact, so who knows?

But maybe Nixon'd be gassing on about the playoffs if he was alive today.

He wasn't as unlikeable as Johnson....So far as looks and charm went, there wasn't much to like about either Johnson or Nixon. I think they both achieved their fame and power before the full impact of television. In those days, we didn't realize how important it was to have a good looking President with a nice smile. Nixon will probably be our last lumpy looking, charmless President.

By now most of the same same things would have happened anyway, but the timing delay could have made a huge difference. Although we lost a lot of jobs to them, I believe the China challenge to us has made us much stronger, and may be the only reason we are even able to compete at all today in the world market. Europe can't in most industries, except in high end goods, and that's without funding a military.

If our people weren't so foolish in the area of political economics by pursuing the European model we would be better off today than ever, and an unparalleled world competitor in a lot more markets.

I think the early opening of China brought that challenge out just before it would have been too late for us to deal with it. We were fat at the time, but not yet obese.

My dad taught me at a young age to put Catalina salad dressing on cottage cheese. I thought I liked it as an eight year old. Inevitably, the giant mouth of the dressing bottle would allow way too much dressing to gush unto my small pile of cottage cheese. Then, I was essentially eating a pile of dressing with cheese curds in it. It was a neon red food that was sweeter than any candy. But I wanted to be like dad. One day, I realized that it was repulsive to eat.

I have a similar story of putting Sprite in eggnog. I guess that is the what Mormons spike it with??? Who knows what was really in dad's nog.

My dad taught me at a young age to put Catalina salad dressing on cottage cheese. I thought I liked it as an eight year old. Inevitably, the giant mouth of the dressing bottle would allow way too much dressing to gush unto my small pile of cottage cheese. Then, I was essentially eating a pile of dressing with cheese curds in it. It was a neon red food that was sweeter than any candy. But I wanted to be like dad. One day, I realized that it was repulsive to eat.

I have a similar story of putting Sprite in eggnog. I guess that is the what Mormons spike it with??? Who knows what was really in dad's nog.

"...would the US had gone a its spending binge with China, until recently, buying up our debt?"

The rise of China economically was inevitable, but would we have spent without them buying the debt? We are accelerating it now even though China doesn't want to buy any more, so I think yes, we would find a way. The U.S. still would have been the best bet for those buying, and the spending appears to be so addictive now that we will eat our own children to keep it up.

So without China, the coming collapse of growth here would have screwed up my lifetime instead the kids behind us. "Winning!"

If I could play the piano, I would play a concerto in front of a roaring fire, as he was known to do (even in July).

I went to see him in 1972, in Ashland, Kentucky, when he was campaigning for re-election. The event was in a high school gym, and the president was running late. Suddenly, a hush of anticipation came over the crowd. He's here! He's here! The pep band began to play.....the theme from "Shaft." Everyone siged at once. Ten or 15 minutes later, the President did appear, and "Hail to the Chief" was played. I wasn't that far away--maybe 30-40 feet behind him. I was amazed at the size of his head, which is something others mentioned about when seeing Mitt Romney in person.

Four years after his resignation, Nixon made his first public appearance in Kentucky--in tiny Hyden, way up in the mountains. He had rejected thousands of previous invitations all over the country, but came to Kentucky to dedicate a recreation center named in his honor.

There are public buildings and programs all over the country that were funded by revenue sharing, a program Nixon started. A good birthday remembrance would be to find one and tack up a note of thanks.

Compared to what Obama has been doing for the last four years, Nixon's actions in Watergate, though wrong, seem pretty mild.

I remember 1968. I was in 5th grade, and we discussed the election in class. We came to the conclusion that Muskie was the best man in the race, but since he was in the VP slot, the Republican ticket should win. I remember it very clearly. Nixon was considered more competent, reasonable, and safer that Humphrey in the opinion of 10 year old wise men and women of the day.

He resupplied Isreal during the Yom Kipper war over the objections of most of his cabinet and NATO allies who ferared a Soviet response. This was possibly the closest time we came to conflict with USSR since the Cuban Missle Crises, but he would not abandonm an ally.

His Quaker motheringrained in him a sense of obligation to Israel that he never forgot.

According to Hunter Thompson in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Nixon was a huge and knowledgable football fan, and the two of them bonded over the subject in a long interview in '68 during the New Hampshire primaries. But then, Thompson was a shameless liar

Thompson may have been a liar, but Nixon was a big pro football and baseball fan. He's the one who started the custom of POTUS calling the winners of the World Series and Super Bowl.

The mission of the Orthogonian Society is to provide an environment for individuals who are striving to reach their full potential, in the field of academics, athletics, and personal growth, while taking on various responsibilities which provide services for our school, and the community. In the process of accomplishing different goals, Orthogonians will display wholehearted values such as: giving 100 percent to every task we pursue, demonstrating the true meaning of brotherhood, being true to ourselves, working smarter and harder, taking advantage of strength and improving upon weaknesses, and venturing through life with a heart full of bravery.

I bumped into Nixon-- literally-- coming through a doorway in the hotel where I work. He looked good and he looked happy. I think it was about 1990. The only security he had with him was a retired San Clemente cop, a friend of mine, who had been pals with Nixon since his days at the Cotton estate. Nixon was very generous with his time during his stay, taking time to chat with stewards and housemaids, and posing for a group photograph on the grand staircase. My opinion of him changed a bit after that.

-Started the EPA-Started Amtrak-Was a Quaker-Got friendly with communist China-Ended the war on the Aisain peoples of Indochina-Tied to control the economy through micro-management-Didn't he support affirmative action?-Supported women's civil rights through sports via Title X-Saved the American eagle from extinction

I have to contrast that last comment with a rather less personal experience I had with Nixon, back in 1972. He was giving a televised address to the nation, on what subject i can't recall. The reception on the TV was bad,distorting the shape of his head awfully. Oh, and I was on acid. At that moment I felt an all-consuming hate for him.

On another note...its been said that if we had todays internet in the early 70s, the whole Watergate thing may have blown over with no consequences to Nixon. The coverup never would have happened as the New Media would have reported the break in before there were any ties to Nixon.

"He resupplied Isreal during the Yom Kipper war over the objections of most of his cabinet and NATO allies who feared a Soviet response."

Not to mention the Arab response. He was presented an option in which three C-5s would airlift key materiel. About which, I believe RN said, "Hell, they'll hate us as much for three planes as for three hundred. Send everything that can fly."

I liked the story Daniel Schorr told in Newsweek after Nixon's death. I gather the Nixon administration had subjected Schorr to considerable bureaucratic harassment, and when they started investigating his loyalty it blew up in their faces. A White House flack claimed, ludicrously, that they were doing a background check because they were considering offering him a sensitive position.

So many years later, Nixon is doing the elder statesman thing, goes back to China to mark an anniversary of reopening relations. He does a talk, and a Q&A with the press, upon his return, so naturally NPR sends Schorr, who introduces himself thus:

"Mr. President, I don't know if you remember me. My name is Daniel Schorr, and - "

And Nixon's face broke into a wide grin as he pumped Schorr's hand. "Dan Schorr, of course I remember you! Damn near hired you once."

Thompson may have been a liar, but Nixon was a big pro football and baseball fan. He's the one who started the custom of POTUS calling the winners of the World Series and Super Bowl.

No doubt true, but what I meant was that I probably should read something less... squirrely about the Nixon years than Thompson's book. That, and the odds that his supposed '68 interview actually happened as described in the book can't be better than one in two.

Good thing about Nixon... Kennedy supposedly said in private that he'd vote for Nixon if Johnson beat him for the '60 nomination. Kennedy and Nixon from all accounts got along much better in the Senate than either man with Johnson. The stuff about making people pray on bended knee aside, I've never heard stories about Nixon personally abusing people the way that Johnson regularly humiliated his staff, family, and anyone else under his authority.

People forget that Nixon's liberal dometic agenda was merely a sop to a leftist, pacifistic Congress that wan'ted to gut Defense. Nizon kept his eye on the big picture and realized that if we lost the Cold War the domestic stuff wouldn't matter anyway.

And Nixon's move to "open up China? The REAL reason is that we had intelligence that the Soviets were considering a nuclear strike on China to take out their nuclear missiles (who were housed in splendid isolation far from population centers) before it was too late to keep them from becoming a major power/threat. Remember, the mineral/oil rich western part of the Siberian SU was an "empty quarter" which China has always eyed covetously and there had been armed clashes along the Amur River border in the mid 60s. The US leadership greatly feared that if the SU successfully pulled it off we would look week and vacillating by comparison and the SU would vault ahead in world leadership and power. The Nixon semi "alliance" with China was a signal/warning/ (bluff, actually--the poker-playing Nixon again) to the SU that there would be "consequences" if it attacked China w. nuclear weapons.

Of course all of the above was Top Secret at the time, but widely talked about down to even the lowest levels of the intelligence community in the armed forces..

Another favorite Nixon quote? When the N. Vietnamese became intransigent in the Paris Peace talks and simultaneously stepped up their offensive in S. Vietnam (which led to the "Christmas Bombing" campaign over N. Vietnam) Nixon casually asked the Chief of Staff of the AF: "How many B-52s do we have?" LOL!

Given that Kissinger is Jewish and his family were refugees from Nazi Germany, I always feel obligated point out Dr. Stangelove was not modeled after Kissinger, who was a fairly obscure academic when the film was released on January 29, 1964.

Per Wikipedia:

The character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist Herman Kahn, mathematician and Manhattan Project principal John von Neumann, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb."[9] There is a common misconception that the character was based on Henry Kissinger, but Kubrick and Sellers denied this.[10]

Thanks to all the commenters on their recollections--President Nixon was indeed a multifaceted person. Were I to live long enough, it would be interesting to see how future historians treat his presidency.

"it would be interesting to see how future historians treat his presidency."

The best biography of Nixon, in my opinion, is that by Conrad Black. It gives some new perspective and is very well done. For example, I did not know until that book that Nixon and De Gaulle were close friends.

It is also almost unknown that Nixon was the victim of a revenge plot by Mark Felt. Nixon had passed over him for FBI head when Hoover died. He was "Deep Throat."

Despite the Daley Machine having faked enough Chicago votes to hand Illinois's electoral votes (and therefore the election) to my opponent, I will suck it up, eschew an Al Gore type legal fit, and bide my time until another election.

I think the joke is more on us and our narcissism than it is on Nixon. We had made significant progress in VN, you can argue we never should have started, and then abandoned what we had built. Rather unfortunately Nixon did box himself into a corner. He was perhaps a little bit of an autistic boy, bright, who didn't find loyalty to his associates as dangerous as he should have.

Thanks to Nixon, on May Day in Washington DC, 1971, I got a taste of just how serious my government can get about civil disobedience.

From Wikipedia, "While protesters listened to music, planned their actions or slept, 10,000 Federal troops were quickly moved to various locations in the Washington, D.C. area. At one point, so many soldiers and marines were being moved into the area from bases along the East Coast that troop transports were landing at the rate of one every three minutes at Andrews Air Force Base in suburban Maryland, about 15 miles from the White House. Among these troops were 4,000 paratroopers from the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division. These troops were to back up the 5,100 D.C. Metropolitan Police, 2,000 D.C. National Guard and Nixon’s internal security forces[who?]that were already in place. Every monument, park and traffic circle in the nation's capital had troops protecting its perimeters. Paratroopers and marines deployed via helicopter to the grounds of the Washington Monument."

Waking up to lines and lines of troops with gas masks and pointed guns, was a life experience I'll never forget.

At the age of 9, in September of 1968, I was impersonally insulted by Dick Nixon.

I waited two hours in the hot NC sun at the front of a rope line for him to arrive (late) to a campaign rally, having been told I would get to shake his hand.

The stinker showed up, started shaking hands, reached right over me ignoring my outstretched arm, actually pushed me back into the crowd with his torso, and shook the hands of people old enough to vote for him. All I got was my head shoved into the armpit of his sweaty polyester suit.

I watched the Watergate proceedings with glee all summer in 1974, and laughed aloud as the TV showed him boarding the chopper for his last trip away from the White House.

Lessee He took us off the gold standard He took no steps to prevent Japanese dumping of electronic products ,gutting the US industry. Wage and Price controls EPA The post office on rails aka Amtrak and the notorious Palace Guard uniforms

Re: Dr. StrangeKissinger. Given that Kissinger is Jewish and his family were refugees from Nazi Germany, I always feel obligated point out Dr. Stangelove was not modeled after Kissinger, who was a fairly obscure academic when the film was released on January 29, 1964.

Per Wikipedia: The character is an amalgamation of RAND Corporation strategist Herman Kahn, mathematician and Manhattan Project principal John von Neumann, German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and Edward Teller, the "father of the hydrogen bomb."[9] There is a common misconception that the character was based on Henry Kissinger, but Kubrick and Sellers denied this.[10]

YES -- but don't forget about Robert Strange McNamara who was the Sec'y of Defense from 61 to 68.

He clearly didn't have the right personality for politics, and appears to have seethed forever with resentment at the way the press treated him throughout his career. At the apex of his life, his flaws set in motion the events that would bring him down.

It may be trite to say, but Nixon's career really does seem Shakespearean to me.

What do I remember most about Nixon, the Draft Lottery. It was Godsend to me and my friends. I know a lot hated it but it gave us a chance to avoid the draft. We were only about 10 miles from downtown Houston but our draftboard, and all its memebers, was in Baytown 25 miles away.

Needless to say when applying selective service they were much more likely to select people from a different community. For years, if you weren't 4F or college bound you were going to be drafted.

The result was that in the Spring of 1970 they dedicated memorial in front of Smiley High School commerating the fact that, at that time, it had tha highest Vietnam casualty rate of any high school.

I'm sure a lot of people have the opposite experience. They lived in draft board coddled communties then suddenly they were at risk.

I've often wondered if the lottery was part of his plan to turn the middle class against the war so he could get us the heck out of there.

Two things. First, Dick Nixon graciously invited Jackie Kennedy and her children for dinner at the White House, and remained gracious even after John John spilled his glass of milk. Second, nobody told Nixon that lies would be OK -- even lies under oath -- as long as they were vicious slanders and elaborate denials in response to valid allegations of extra-marital sex.